FRANK YERBY
Historical Novelist, Short Story Writer, and Poet (1916 - 1991)

Mr. Yerby graduated from Augusta's Paine College, received a master's degree from Fisk University and taught at Florida A&M in Tallahassee and Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. His story, Health Card, won the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best first published short story in 1944.

Mr. Yerby later would say it was racial discrimination growing up in Augusta that caused his self-imposed exile in Madrid, Spain, where he lived from 1955 until his death on Nov. 29, 1991.

Yerby has published more than 30 novels, which has sold more than 55 million copies.  Several ' The Foxes of Harrow (1946), The Golden Hawk (1948), The Saracen Blade (1952) '  were turned into successful movies.

'Portions of the above excerpted from The Oxford Companion to African American Literature (New York, Oxford University Press, 1997) & (http://www.augusta.com/leaders/slideshow_national/slide45.html)

 

The Golden Hawk
 

From the Back Cover

As a young boy Kit Gerado had seen his mother murdered by the arrogant Don Luis del Toro. Now, as a buccaneer captain, he longed to meet his enemy and duel with him to the death. But Don Luis was governor of Cartagena, protected by the mightiest fortress in the Caribbean.

Kit and his pirates roamed the West Indies finding both adventure and love. There was man-hating Rough of the taunting eyes, her self a desperate buccaneer. And Lady Rosalind Parish, who had the ways of a wanton. The great Spanish galleons yielded their golden treasures. Bianca, the beautiful wife of Don Luis, melted with love in Kit's arms. And finally this proud and vengeful pirate came face to face, knife to knife, with the man he had sworn to kill!

 

Benton's Row
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His best work may be his novel

The Dahomean
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(1971, later republished as
The Man from Dahomey
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The Foxes of Harrow
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The Saracen Blade
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The Vixens
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A Woman Called Fancy

 

 

Related Links

Frank Yerby Renaissance Project
http://frankyerby.com/

Yerby is captured in this anthology: The African American West: A Century of Short Stories
http://www.aalbc.com/books/short.htm

Bruce A. Glasrud and Laurie Champion have compiled a book of short stories written by African American authors and all on the subject of the American West. This remarkable volume includes the work of Rita Dove, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Terry McMillan, Walter Mosley, Mike Thelwell, John A. Williams, Frank Yerby and many others!